Hospital associated infections (HAI's) are a significant concern in the care of hospitalized patients. In 2014, the New Journal of Medicine published the results of the U.S Center for Disease Control's HAI Prevalence Study project. Per the study results, there were an estimated 722,000 HAIs in U.S acute care hospitals, affecting approximately one in 25 hospitalized patients, and an estimated 75,000 HAI-related deaths from hospitalized patients. According to a study published in the Journal of Medical Economics the societal impact of HAI's in acute care hospitals in the USA is estimated at $147 billion annually. HAI's typically result in longer hospital stays and aggressive treatment of HAI's with antibiotics increases the resistance of multidrug resistant organisms.
The majority of HAI's are preventable (pHAI). Steps can be taken to control and prevent HAI's in a variety of settings. The CDC's Guidelines for Environmental Control in Health-Care Facilities includes recommendations on appropriate use of hospital-grade, EPA-registered cleaners and disinfectants, and cleaning and disinfecting high-touch surfaces, e.g., doorknobs, bed rails, light switches, and surfaces in and around patient room toilets, on a more frequent cleaning schedule.
The present invention seeks to further address the issue of pHAI control and prevention through advanced design of common hospital room furnishings and methods for scheduling and tracking the cleaning and disinfection of high-touch surfaces. Privacy curtains in hospital rooms are often used to divide larger spaces into individual patient areas or cubicles and also, simply to provide privacy. Studies show that curtains can become contaminated with drug resistant organisms rapidly. Pathogens are transmitted to and from the privacy curtains through airborne transmission and physical contact by healthcare providers, visitors, and patients themselves. Some curtains are treated with anti-microbial chemicals to reduce pathogen transmission. These treatments are generally effective against some bacteria, but are not antiviral, efficacy declines over time with washing and these chemical leach into the environment. Further, the advent of applications that run on smart phones and other hand-held devices that can communicate with a database of scheduling information provides an opportunity to effectively track and schedule regular cleaning routines of the high-touch surfaces.